Legion of One
by stefanie bean
Summary: A dark power takes over Hurley, leading him to think that he's losing his mind once more.
1. The Last Daimon

**Chapter 1: The Last Daimon**

_Jesus said to the man with the unclean spirit, 'What is your name?' And from out of the afflicted man came the answer, 'My name is Legion, for we are many.'_ **- ****Mark 5:9**

The dark daimons had lived for thousands of years in a deep stone shaft in the center of the Island, also known as the Heart of Worlds. Then a tribe of warriors sailed to the Island, fiercer than any who had come before them. Their wars with the daimons raged, until the gods of the Island took pity and cast their lot with men. With the gods' help, these warriors chased the daimons back to their underground stronghold, securing them there with chains forged by the gods. But even divine bonds fail if there be no smith to heal time's fractures, and so the dark beings in their hate and anger waited in their weakening chains.

Sometimes even the gods cannot repair what they have wrought.

By the time a hapless, heavily pregnant Roman woman washed up on the Island's shores, to be delivered of her twin burdens and then of her life, the daimons were already weakening with age. For while the span of daimons' lives were measured in long spans of centuries, even their time must wind towards its end. One by one they passed into that black void which surrounds the Island both inside and out, that place where time itself is devoured and matter ground to nothingness.

Finally only one daimon remained, the last one who remembered when cold Atlantic waters lapped the Island's shores instead of warm Pacific ones, back when men had given the Island names like Hyperborea, or Atlantis, or Avalon. And though the daimon was the last of its kind whom the gods had chained and then forgotten, and though it retained only a fraction of its former strength and malevolence, still it raged, and waited.

Now in those last days of the Protector Jacob, some men who were neither warriors nor mages came to the Island, yet they fancied themselves both. With their drills and machines they pierced the glassy rock of that last dark one's prison.

These men prided themselves on their lore. They thought themselves masters even of the stars themselves, as they prattled on about the red ones and the yellow, the blue and the white hot, even the black ones which could bend time itself. Deluded, they thought that spinning tales of something meant they had mastered it.

But never had the cold white light of a dark sun been loosed upon the Island until now. In their hubris, these new men pierced with their drills the barrier between worlds, and for a brief instant they unleashed energy from the bowels of the World's Heart itself.

Dark light surged out, colorless as the blood of daimons. Metal took on a life of its own, animated by floods of power. Chains thrashed about like serpents. The gantry which held the drilling device collapsed as if trod upon by giants. Electromagnetic screams rose to an ear-splitting pitch. In terror the men dropped their tools, and ran for their lives. Then, as the dark white magma erupted from the crevice, time itself bent, and then broke.

The daimon shrieked with joy, thinking it would rush free out onto the Island once more. Its glee quickly turned to rage when it broke like a wave against an invisible wall. A radiant bubble rose up through the dark light which surrounded the shaft's magnetic core, and formed a barrier. Hemmed in and confined, the daimon gibbered and spat at this unexpected development, but there it remained, trapped at the bottom of the shaft. So close had the daimon come, so close but yet not close enough, because the metal and concrete walls circumvented a prison which contained the daimon still.

Even after such dreadful events, the false mages refused to leave the shaft. They called the burst of dark light "The Incident," as if naming it gave them control. In their hubris, they laid steel and poured concrete until a shelter rose atop the laceration from which the Island still bled. There the men left some of their own kind to wait, to watch, to staunch the wound.

Now of all the gods on the Island, the most ancient was the goddess Haumea. Jealous and quick of temper, her wrath fell upon the false mages, and especially upon their women. For Haumea did not forgive their intrusions into the secret chambers of the Island's Heart, and offenses against Haumea could be expiated only by blood.

With a wave of her wrinkled hand, Haumea stopped the flow of life from the World's womb to the Island's women, so that they sickened and died along with their unborn children. That curse lay fixed for many years, until Haumea's heart softened and she did relent. But that is a tale for another day.

Now a daimon can maneuver through the cracks of a human mind as easily as it slides through the tiniest interstices of rock. So when the false mages left their minions to play with their toys, their blinking lights and whirring tape drives, the daimon slid from one man's mind to another, creeping in through the openings left by human weakness.

One by one the Dharma Initiative technicians died, and since their masters thought they had succumbed to ordinary loneliness, they were given companions, although in company they were just as likely to kill each other as themselves. Then some mysterious illness was suspected, and they stenciled in large letters across the door the word "Quarantine."

In an instant of bitter humor one of the false mages named his prison the Swan Station, saying, "Our swan song, our last chance. If we blow it, then we've all had it on this Island," shortly before blowing his brains out with a shotgun.

For a full score of years, men wasted their lives and their sanity tending equipment whose functions they barely understood. And unseen to the men, checked in power by the electromagnetic chaos which pulsed from the bleeding wound in the Island's side, the daimon committed its multiple mischiefs.

But the daimon could only do so much. Unlike the Phoenicians or Egyptians who had come before, these new men had more resistance than the daimon would have liked. It could torment them, but it could not yet find among the new men one with a mind open enough to enter fully, and thus escape.

For the new men simply figured themselves lunatics, took their pills, and went mad anyway from the terrible conditions of their solitude or mutual hatred. At least it was a spectacle enjoyable to watch.

There came a time in those final days of Jacob when Desmond Hume, the last of the uniformed men paced in his three-years' prison, pressed his computer keys, raged and feared but did not die. Him the daimon ignored, as his mind was locked behind an impregnable fortress of electromagnetic flux.

Then the great metal door blew open, and even newer people slid down the damp tunnel into the Swan station's darkness. The last daimon capered with joy, and then tried to slide into the first new one to come into the Swan Hatch. But before the daimon had advanced even halfway into the mind of the old bald man named John Locke, something launched the daimon backward as if it had been tossed from a trebuchet.

The daimon found itself staring into the black faceless void of someone it had only heard of, never seen. For even daimons have their own legends, stories of beings even stranger and more malignant than themselves, beings who had come before them, and who someday might return.

The daimon stared at the fell thing of black smoke. That inky, swirling intelligence stared right back, scanning, recording, analyzing. The daimon knew enough at this point to keep its mouth shut until the smoke being retreated a little farther back into the bald man's mind. The daimon politely waited for a time, thinking the black smoke would speak first, but the black smoke didn't, so the daimon took the initiative.

"Hail, Typhoeus," the daimon murmured.

Tiny flecks of lightning played across the smoky being's crenulated surface before he spoke._ "_Close, but no cigar. Anyway, that crap doesn't work on me. You know, the old shtick, guess the name and now they're your patsy."

The daimon had no way of knowing this, but the smoke being imitated an actor named James Cagney, in accents stolen from the mind of an American soldier deployed in 1953 to a remote Pacific island for nuclear testing. The soldier had been sucked into the maelstrom of the black smoke thing, his memories absorbed, his doom met.

"Many apologies," said the daimon. "I didn't know the bald one belonged to you."

"John Locke is signed, sealed, and delivered," said the thing of smoke, who when he was still human had been the brother of Jacob, and whose name was Samael. "Go find another ride, before I kill you myself."

So the daimon retreated back into the shadows of the Swan Station for a time, making sure to stay out of John Locke's way. There were other pickings, though, because a few more new people roamed the concrete corridors, and at first the daimon waxed enthusiastic, so relieved to have new minds to explore.

First the daimon slid up and down in serpentine fashion over the lithe, dark-haired woman called Kate. But she was hopeless for the daimon's purposes: intelligent, yes, and full of spirit, but no better than a beast, really, although a magnificent one. In bygone days the breastless ones, the _Hamazana_ would have crowned her their queen.

The daimon had had much opportunity to observe the pathetic midnight fantasies of the men who slept in the Swan Station, but this woman far outranked any actress who trod those tawdry boards. Strangely, Locke seemed singularly unable to appreciate the spirited mare in front of him. But given the paucity of the feeble human imagination, it was no surprise. Kate's instincts were sharp, too, for more than once she felt the daimon go past her, although she blamed the cold, cave-like air for the chill which crawled up her spine.

So it went for a brief time, with the men and the woman coming and going. The new people quarreled with Desmond, and he ran away from the Swan Station, but the daimon didn't care. Human quarrels with their shouting and their gun-play interested the daimon only when it led to spectacular mayhem. More important, even though the Station door hung wide open now, the daimon still remained imprisoned, as it waited with increasing impatience for that time when a malleable and open-hearted human host might present itself.

Then, shortly after Desmond left, two more men came. The broad-shouldered, bronze-skinned one thought in the fluid speech of Araby and had the skills of a mage. His name was Sayid, and would have served admirably under other circumstances, but he was in love, and every opening into his heart was furred over with so much soft sentiment as to be impassable. The daimon could smell her, could share the man's memories of her soft-blown blonde tresses, the fresh downy hair which dusted tawny limbs, and the daimon recoiled in disgust.

She was a prize, though, the daimon had to admit. If the dark-tressed beauty Kate was worthy of a warrior queen's crown, this sylph Shannon would in better days have graced the highest ranks of courtesans. So the man of Araby was useless, but the daimon in its long experience knew that women were as fragile as men were fickle. It would keep this intense man with his mage's mind well within daimonic sights, should he later prove to be useful.

But Sayid's companion must have been literally dropped out the sky by a stroke of fortune, all for the daimon's benefit. Just as travelers marvel when they turn a corner of the road and come upon some huge natural wonder like a canyon, or the mouth of a cave wide enough through which to sail a ship, so yawned the daimon's opening.

The fat, curly-haired man wandered through the Swan Station's food pantry, his mouth agape. At first the daimon took him for a eunuch, for the Phoenicians had bought some with them during their visits to the Island, and the daimon had never seen anyone so large, save them. A swift examination up and down the big man's frame showed this not to be the case, however. So the daimon sat cautiously at the vast opening of the fat man's mind, waiting.

Such wide access usually resulted from overweening hubris, but this man had so little that an appeal to pride would be useless. The daimon's curiosity was aroused, but it hadn't survived so many thousands of years by being reckless. Many of its kind over centuries and continents had been lured in by similar ostensible welcomes, only to find themselves trapped in lamps, bottles, or boxes, condemned to decades of tedious servitude to their human jailers. So the daimon carefully explored the perimeter, tested the entrance, peered into the murk of the fat man's mind, and made the fatal mistake of confusing obscurity for malleability.

The daimon could be excused for jumping in without much forethought. After all, it had been trapped for a very long time, and a possible vehicle for escape had finally arrived. Never mind why this man's mind, in particular, should be so accessible. Who knew when such an opportunity would strike again?

The daimon watched the fat man stare a tin of candy bars with a lust so powerful it almost thrust the daimon to one side. Unlike Kate before him, though, who had torn off the wrapper and stuffed one into her mouth, then another, the fat man just stood there, riveted and struggling.

All the new people were starving to some degree or another. They were working harder than they ever had in their pampered lives, burning up their own substance in the process. Ignorant as children, they suffered from hunger in the midst of Island plenty. The fat man's appetite flamed up in burning plumes which blazed through the fog of the man's body and soul.

The daimon sat cautiously, not wanting to get burned by such a fire. It noted with interest that the large man's limbs were literally shaking: not only from desire for food, but from fighting the desire. His control was remarkable. The sweat stood out on his brow, from the pain of literally forcing his hands to remain at his sides. Fascinated, the daimon crept closer in, trying to leave as few footprints on the man's mind as possible.

"Let's see," the daimon said to itself as it probed further into the introitus of the fat man's mind. "Look at all these interesting things in here. Down that one twisting passage there's anger. Excellent that it's all bottled up, because it ferments so much better that way. With his titan's arms he holds his anger in check, but sooner or later it will break free. He especially hates the one he calls Saw-yer, perhaps a sawer or chopper of wood. But while they've tussled, he hasn't yet really fought him. Perhaps he can be induced to do so. With his size and strength, he could fight mightily_," _and the daimon chuckled to itself for ever having mistaken the big man for a gelding.

"Wait, though. The saw-er of wood has fled for the open ocean on their pathetic raft made of twigs. Well, we know how that always turns out." As the daimon cackled, the man stopped staring, and look around as if he'd actually heard something.

"So that's how it goes," the daimon mused. "He's one of the rare ones, one of those who can sense all the layers of worlds and creatures invisibly laid over the mundane tedium of his own." So rare, in fact, that the daimon had only seen two or three others like the big man in all its many thousands of years. Against its own common sense, the daimon crept closer and deeper into the fat man's mind.

"Pssst," the daimon whispered to the fat man, not only for its own amusement, but to test his sensitivity. "Don't you want all this food? It can be yours, you know, if you just let me come in. I won't take up much room, I promise. You won't even know that I'm there. Come on, you know that it was meant to be. Why else would you have been able to get into the Swan?"

The daimon had never seen a swan, but it hadn't gotten to be the last of its kind by being a slow learner. Use words that they recognize; set forth the deal in terms which they understand; get them hooked, then reel them in. It was all a matter of good technique.

The daimon knew the big man had heard the words, but at first he didn't react. Instead, the huge bulk of the man's resistance pushed against a door inside his memory, one already firmly shut. Something crouched behind that door, something which the fat man didn't want anyone else to see, didn't want anyone to know about. The daimon flattened itself out thinner than paper, hoping to slide through, to get a peek at what was on the other side.

"Secrets," the daimon chortled to itself. "How I love secrets." A breached secret could open an entrance wide as the grassland which lay directly across the broad belly of the Island, wide enough for a whole legion of daimons to enter.

Even the fat man's name was a secret. Hugo, it was, but he held it close to his soft chest like a talisman.

Maddened with curiosity, intrigued, the daimon wedged itself into the crack of the door which held Hugo's secrets, and pushed with all its might against the force of Hugo's resistance. The daimon caught just a momentary glance inside, before the door once again snapped shut, but what it saw in there convinced it once again to appeal to the lure of the cans and boxes cramming the shelves.

Hugo softened, weakened by fatigue, by anxiety, by the constant fights within his own nature. He stared at the open candy tin which Kate had already rifled through, and thought, _I'm so tired of this. So tired of fighting. Nothing changes. Nothing ever will. Man, I miss candy. You can smell the chocolate even through the paper._ _ They wouldn't miss __just __one, would they? _

Then a long montage appeared in the man's mind, a wide array of convenience stores and vending machines, of snack counters and food wagons, all incomprehensible to the daimon save for the underlying throb of desire.

Suddenly a woman's face popped into fat Hugo's mind, one whose sweet expression was framed by pale yellow hair, her glance soft and tender as she suckled her spawn. The daimon wasn't stupid: as often as it had made use of lust in the past, it knew that desire was the raw material, and lust the tool by which desire might be shaped. Here, though, lust alone wouldn't work, for Hugo had already draped the golden mantle of tenderness around the yellow-haired girl's small shoulders.

The important thing was that Hugo kept thinking over and over that the yellow-haired girl must not find out. She couldn't; if she did, it would be terrible; he would have to go into the forest and hide. She was better off with Charlie anyway, because Charlie couldn't have a secret so horrible, so oppressive, as his own.

The daimon neither knew who Charlie was nor cared, but the way in seemed plain. "No one has to know," the daimon whispered to Hugo as he continued to stare at the tin of candy bars. "There's so much food in here, you could just come in now and then, and take what you want. No one would ever notice."

The daimon inched closer, almost all the way in now. Then it stopped short in shock. It wasn't alone in the big man's mind at all, for an intruder appeared out of the mist. Bald, pudgy, gnomic, the creature crouched on hairy naked haunches in front of the daimon, a grin on his bulgy features.

"Who the hell are you?" the daimon demanded. "And what are you doing in here?"

"You can call me Dave. You're going about this all wrong. I know this guy. Been here, done that, got the ratty flannel bathrobe to prove it."

The daimon said, scoffing, "You stink of failure. Otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here naked and desolate, half outside, half in. Why should I listen to the likes of you? Just get out my way."

All the same, the daimon skirted with care around the dwarf-like bald creature. The daimon recognized the gnomic thing for what he was: a ghost, one of those hungry ghosts who haunt places awash in pain: hospitals and jails, torture chambers and prison ships.

This ghost had lived for some time within Hugo's mind, and had haunted it in the past. Quite a spectacular haunting, too, given the deep psychic footprints which the gross gnome had left behind. Hugo thought that this particular ghost had gone, but no ghost is ever entirely vanquished. Once a ghost enters a human mind, some part of it always remains, and its foul odor seeps into dreams, where in the hollow of a sleepless night it sits on the chest, digging in with its claws.

But dealing with hungry ghosts of this sort was child's play for the daimon, and so into itself the daimon sucked the remnants of Dave Smith until nothing was left but dusty remains, which the daimon kicked aside like trash as it went further on into Hugo's mind. So thus did the daimon learn how Dave had tempted Hugo, and how he had failed.

"Pathetic amateurs, those hungry ghosts," the daimon said to itself. "They always over-reach. No subtlety whatever."

Then, in a perfect imitation of Dave Smith's voice, using his sneer and sarcastic manner, the daimon said to Hugo, "Hey, Hurley, what's shakin? What's it gonna be, dude? You gonna let me in, let me help get all this grub for you? Man, you're starving. Look at you, wasting away to a shadow of your former self."

Hugo jerked his head around. He'd heard Dave, loud and clear as if he was sitting right next to him in the Santa Rosa hospital's day room.

"I'd be sick of it myself," the daimon went on in Dave's voice. "Standing up to your knees in cold sea water every day, throwing that net, chucking that spear. Half the time that Korean dude feels sorry for you and gives you fish, anyway. Then his hot wife goes off and laughs at you. Yeah, I seen you looking. She's wasted on him, ain't she? She hates his guts. You can see it in her eyes. But her old man's gone now on that matchstick raft. Probably feeding the fishes himself."

Oh, the daimon had Hugo's attention now, so it pressed onward. "What's your excuse now, big fella? Go ahead and make your move, now that hubby's gone. Hey, maybe you could show her around the Swan. Wouldn't those pretty brown eyes bug out when she saw this place? Lotta dark corners down here-"

"Hurley?" the woman Kate called from outside the food storage room. "What about the breaker box? Did you find it?"

"Hmm. Depends on what you mean by 'it,'" and at that moment Hugo decided. His resistance collapsed, and the daimon slid right down the greased chute of Hugo's will. And the beauty of it was, Hugo wouldn't even know what he carried, just as a man with a be-numbed foot doesn't notice the stone in his shoe until the stone wears a hole through the skin of the foot, until it bleeds and festers.

The daimon stretched, exultant after its long captivity. True, given more of a choice, this wasn't the body it would have picked. The daimon's last host was a Phoenician ship captain, lean and strong, rippled with muscle. Ah, that host had provided opportunity for some satisfying chaos, at least until the sea captain had been cut down by his own first-mate's ax. And while there were few footholds into Hugo's mind, so few ladder-rungs of pride or vanity or ambition upon which to climb, everyone had their weaknesses. Everyone.

This was going to be fun.

(_continued_)


	2. My Friend Dave

**Chapter 2: My Friend Dave**

After the food-giveaway party was long over for the night, and the beach camp castaways slept beside their solitary fires, Hugo crept in and out of the Swan Station's back door. In his arms he carried a hammer, a keyhole saw, and a bag of nails, all quietly removed from one of the Swan's storerooms. John Locke ignored Hugo, distracted by his own preoccupations with the Swan Station's intricate passageways, its whirring computers.

You sure didn't need wood around here, Hugo thought as he sawed away. Bamboo grew everywhere, and it did just fine. He cut down one long straight pole after another, unable to slow down his racing thoughts.

It looked like Kate and Jack had gone off on their own, maybe to a room in the Swan's recesses, maybe off in the jungle to make love. More likely, though, they were fighting over what to tell the rest of the survivors about the Hatch. Not that Hugo blamed Jack. Kate was hot, even if Hugo didn't go for the _Natural Born Killers_ type. Jack did, though, but it was hard to tell what was up with those two.

Maybe Sayid was getting some loving tonight, too, but who knows. Shannon had always been like a beautiful grenade ready to go off in your face, but now nobody could keep track of her moods, not even Sayid. One moment, the two of them would be all over each other in front of the whole beach camp, so people grumbled behind Sayid's back that they should get a room. Too often, Shannon would fight Sayid like a wild cat, then switch back to tender again.

But now Shannon was saying strange things, and seeing them as well.

Maybe he should tell Shannon that he'd seen a few things in his time too, but Hugo set that thought aside right away. Sure, he'd told Jack he'd been a psych patient, but doctors were supposed to keep that stuff secret, right? Shannon, though, would tell the whole beach, and if that story got around, nobody would trust him again with anything. Anyway, Shannon thought he was a slob, that was obvious.

Hugo sighed as he carried his bamboo poles out to a small copse in the woods just northeast of the Swan Station's back door. The path to the secluded spot was hard going, and Hugo stumbled more than once over the fallen logs and small, loose rocks which treacherously shifted underfoot. The fattening crescent moon hung like a crooked grin high in the sky as Hugo cobbled together some crude shelves, and tears came to his eyes only in part from the pain of hitting his fingers repeatedly with the hammer.

Then the makeshift bamboo shelves were done. Now it was time to stock them.

Even the throbbing in his hammered fingers couldn't divert Hugo from the force inside which pushed him onward, leaving him almost powerless. The higher the crooked moon rose, the faster Hugo moved at his task, almost tripping as he toted cans and jars from the Swan pantry, weighed down by his backpack and the anxiety of his own compulsion.

In a moment of clarity he thought, _This really sucks._ _Why the hell am I doing this?_

Hugo hadn't told anyone, but in the days following the plane crash, his compulsion to eat without thought or hunger had entirely vanished. Eventually, though, the airline meals had run out. After he'd given his last one to Claire instead of keeping it for himself, after he'd apologized to her because he didn't have two for her this time, it was then that the real hunger hit.

Hugo had been so ravenous that his teeth ached. He would have stuffed anything in his mouth, sedge grass, tree bark, unripe fruit. Even in the throes of that initial emptiness, he could tell that something had changed inside of him. Something was missing. At first he chalked it up to being genuinely hungry for the first time in his life.

But after his body had gotten used to the fish, the unusual tropical fruits, the eggs, the coconut, gnawing hunger had subsided to a small nagging emptiness. It wasn't just that a single dried octopus was delicious now, or that in the rare times when he was satisfied, enough was enough. The urge to mechanically eat until near-unconsciousness had disappeared.

Hugo wasn't a reflective man and didn't often put his thoughts into words. All he knew was that it was like a low constant ache which you didn't know you had, until it was gone.

Now the urge was back, but not quite in the same way. In the past, Hugo ate without secrecy, even if his mother yelled about the whole box of cookies which had disappeared, or wondered in sarcastic tones how could anyone pack away a twenty-piece bucket of hot wings at one time. Now, though, it seemed that he got more pleasure from the secrecy than even from the act of eating itself.

After Hugo finished loading the shelves, he slid a few treats into his backpack. Funny, it had been almost more fun building the shelves than stocking them. For other than finishing off a few Apollo bars, he hadn't even opened the ranch dressing or peanut butter. Simply knowing the jars and cans were there out in their jungle hiding place, concealed by a screen of leaves and branches, gave him a sick giddy anxiety which gnawed at him more than any bodily hunger.

Hugo slipped back into the Swan Station through the back door, only to be ignored again by Locke. Then it was Hugo's turn to sit in front of the Swan Station's terminal, waiting till the counter signaled the time to "play the numbers," as he put it to himself.

When the buzzer sounded, a sick feeling of wrongness washed over Hugo as he typed in the fatal sequence. He thought he saw Locke's glance travel from himself to his backpack and back again, but Locke said nothing. So Hugo eventually drifted off to sleep in front of the computer terminal, exhausted from exchanging the weight of his first burden for one odder, heavier, and even less explicable.

OoOoOoOoOo

Two weeks later, the beach camp was in turmoil. Never a dull moment on Craphole Island, as poor dead Shannon would have put it. Just the night before, Sawyer had captured the contents of the Swan Station's armory, tricked Jack, Kate, and Locke all at once, and no one could puzzle out how he had done it. So now, on this very morning, the beach camp huddled hushed and quiet. People whispered in small groups, darting glances over at Sawyer, then dropped their eyes if he looked in their direction.

Hugo had woken up sick with fear that Sawyer might lose his temper and shoot someone, just as Ana Lucia had shot Shannon. So under a morning-pale sun which promised that this day was going to be a really hot one, Hug skirted well around Sawyer's shelter, trying not to be seen, and headed out to that part of the jungle where no one was supposed to go.

No one would follow him, because they were all afraid of the French chick.

Hugo wasn't. For one thing, he could tell that Rousseau liked him. Not only had she given him a battery, but also a warm, long hug topped off with a pretty decent kiss besides. Sure, he'd tried to catch her eye later, when they went on that trek to get dynamite from that wrecked ship, and sure, she'd ignored him. That was kind of the story of his life, anyway. Girls might be willing to make out with him behind closed doors, but to be seen with him at the Troubadour for a concert, that was another story.

Too bad Rousseau was 31 flavors of crazy, and a baby-napper besides.

What Hugo didn't want to admit was that it was way easier to muse about Rousseau, than listen to the little remnant of sanity from deep down inside, which kept insisting that something was wrong, and couldn't he feel it? So ever since he'd first entered the Swan Station, all of Hugo's will pressed down on that small reasonable spark, trying to keep it under wraps. To shut it up.

Above, high up in the canopy where the trees swayed like green waves in the wind, a couple of loud bird calls rang out. There was that bird again, the one with the cry like no other, the one they'd heard weeks ago out in the jungle after their trek to the Black Rock, before the smoke monster showed up and all hell broke loose. Or birds, rather, because one long, loud caw was echoed by another. They were up there in the canopy somewhere too high for Hugo to see, calling out to each other those long syllables which almost sounded like his name.

On he went, deep into the jungle, the weird bird cries diminishing into silence behind him. In a cool clearing, where thick grass and moss covered the ground like a soft carpet, Hugo unpacked his backpack. He stared for a few seconds at the cans and jars spread out all in a row, and compulsively he opened every tin, laid out the Apollo bars and chocolate cookies, went over each one of the pickle and olive jars, the peanut butter. In pride of place he set a half-gallon tub of Dharma Ranch Dressing.

Overhead, tree limbs hung heavy with ripe mango. Not surprising, as not even Kate would go this far from the beach to pick fruit. He wondered how well mango would slide down with some of that ranch. Opening the jar of white, gooey sauce for the first time, he plunged one mango slice in, then another. They sure made a poor substitute for chips, though, and as a matter of fact, the combo tasted pretty disgusting. He kept on eating anyway, relishing the solitude but hating it at the same time.

Since Hugo had first gone down into the Swan Hatch, the sense of foreign invasion had grown almost to the point where he didn't recognize himself at all.

In the forest, crouched over the foul-smelling jar of salad dressing, seized with weird compulsion and pleasure at the same time, something inside Hugo told him that he needed this. He was owed it. Hadn't he done so much for everyone over the past two months already? Think of it as payment. He was due.

Then his thoughts wandered back to one shining idea, which he just couldn't push down. Claire would sit next to him under a tarp and write in her blue leather-bound book, while Hugo would hold a cooing baby Aaron, soothed by no sound but the music of the crashing sea. Not a strained, uncomfortable silence, either, where no one knows what to say, but the peaceful, glorious kind, where everything is in its proper place, and the pieces all fit.

Well, if Claire knew about him, he could kiss that idea goodbye, because then he wouldn't get within ten feet of Aaron for sure. Look what had happened to Charlie. His secret was displayed all over the beach now, and Claire wouldn't even speak to him.

Liars, was what she said. I won't have any liars around my baby. Well, Hugo had to be the biggest, fattest liar of them all, didn't he?

And Sun had almost caught Hugo resupplying his backpack from the secret shelves in the copse. Then again, what was she doing in the woods all alone that far from the beach herself? He'd offered her part of a candy bar, but she looked at it as if he'd handed her a rotten fish.

Hugo was glad Jin was back safe and sound, but nights weren't quiet anymore, because small midnight cries issued from Sun and Jin's tent, which sat right next to his own. Sun would gasp, then let out a soft, drawn-out sigh, followed by Jin's louder, deeper cry of conclusion. And each morning Sun would emerge from her tent and walk to the sea with long, liquid movements, her face glowing with love.

It was pure torment.

Then, if things couldn't get any weirder, a couple days ago he'd been doing laundry in the Swan Station with the tall, lean tail section survivor named Libby. She'd waved a white lacy thong at him and asked him in a joking voice if it was his. Then she had put on that purple sequined shirt, and hadn't taken it off since. After that they'd hung out off and on, but whatever he said to her, it always seemed to come out wrong, or not good enough. Also, this weird familiarity surrounded her, like a name or a song lyric always resting on the tip of your tongue, but one you just couldn't get out.

Now she was dropping hints that he should go jogging with her. That was a good sign, right?

He was still puzzling it out when Dave's voice sneered directly into his left ear, "Women. Mooning over 'em's just a waste of time."

Hugo gave a little start. He'd told himself more than once that the familiar voice in the Swan Station had been just his imagination. Now he repeated to himself, _You're just making it up. He's not here. _

The weird sense of the past two weeks, so vague and incoherent yet so naggingly familiar, coalesced into a name, a face, a voice. Dave. From the mental hospital. Who Hugo had thought he had banished. But maybe not.

The voice went on, and now Hugo couldn't deny that it wasDave speaking clear as a bell, as if he sat close beside Hugo as they used to do so often in the went on,_"_Take your buddy Sayid there. What did love do for him? Dude almost went postal on you when you gave him that radio. The fights, the tears, the drama, man, believe me, they're not worth it. Hump 'em and dump 'em, that's what I say."

Nobody was hiding nearby in the vacant jungle. Hugo knew the drill, how it started. First you hear the voices. Then you start talking back to them. And if you're really unlucky, you see them, too. Before you know it, you're stuck in your own private Idaho for days, having energetic conversations with the walls.

Weird tiredness washed over him again, a fatigue not of the body but of the will. He ate another mango slice and decided OK, he'd play along. What the hell. Out loud he said, _"_So, Dave, what happened to you getting out of Santa Rosa and banging hot chicks? Change your mind?"

"That's right, bro, hot chicks, not like the skanks around here -"

"Shut up," Hugo said, and amazingly, Dave did.

All at once, a tiny peeping sound piped up right in front of Hugo. He squinted into the dappled forest shadows, then recoiled a bit, as a small creature leaped across his field of view and landed on the log directly at his feet. The tiny frog chirruped again and fixed Hugo with an eye black as a jet bead.

"Hey, little buddy," said Hugo, and without thinking reached out his laden hand towards the creature. White gluey sauce dripped from the mango chunk onto the log. The frog just chirped, ignoring the offering. Of course it would. Hugo said, "Yeah, I guess you want flies or something. Sorry, little dude. You're gonna have to catch your own."

It was a pretty thing, shiny green as an emerald with deep violet-black patterns across the head and back. That thing which been riding Hugo like a nightmare slid away from the chirping piebald jewel, as if repulsed by it. As the daimon's grip loosened for a moment, Hugo saw himself in a cold, merciless light, hiding and ashamed, hand sticky with white residue.

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

The frog chirped louder and more frantically this time, then leaped away from Hugo onto an overhanging low branch. Another chirp or two, and he could almost swear the little thing wanted him to follow it.

Once more the frog cried out, shrill and insistent, and Hugo thought about clambering to his feet, but hesitated. If he went after it, he'd have to leave the food. There'd be no time to gather it up and stuff it back into his pack. "Damn," said Hugo, stricken and unable to act. The frog darted away into the trees, peeping loudly as it dove deeper into that neck of the woods where none of them were supposed to go.

There was nothing else to do but dip another piece of mango into the Dharma ranch dressing. He'd just started reading the label, "Fully hydrogenated. Shelf-life seven years without refrigeration," and was so busy pondering what the hell was in it which made it keep that long, that he didn't even hear someone pushing through the bushes.

Then things went from bad to worse, because over him loomed Sawyer, red-eyed and furious.

(_continued_)


	3. Hugo in the Sky with Diamonds

**Chapter 3: Hugo in the Sky with Diamonds**

Sawyer demanded to know whether Hurley had seen that noisy bastard of a frog, and by God, if he caught it, he was going to kill that little son of a bitch. Then Sawyer turned his fury upon Hugo. Hugo had better help him, or else he'd tell about Hugo's petty thievery. Everyone would know.

A purifying anger mounted in Hugo like a column, and for a moment the Dave-thing got pushed to one side, flattened and helpless.

Hugo screamed at Sawyer, "So what?" It wasn't some big secret that he was fat, and he repeated the word five times, like an incantation.

Inwardly, though, Hugo thought he would die from despair. If Sawyer told, the puzzlement on Claire's face would change to disgust. Sun's small smile would go blank and remote, and let's face it, it was no wonder Sun went into the forest time and again with Michael. After all, Michael wasn't fat, was he?

Libby, well, Libby might at least be kind. She had that sweet professional tone which made you think everything you said or did was OK, the way the nurses used to talk at Santa Rosa when they thought they could handle you without calling in the muscle. At least Libby wouldn't laugh at him. Probably.

But it didn't matter, none of it, because all Sawyer had to do was breathe a few words in the right ears, and everyone would know.

Strangely, though, Sawyer stopped ranting. His perspiring, twisted face changed from anger and derision to appeal. Hurley had to help him, Sawyer pleaded. He was getting no sleep. His arm hurt like a vindictive bitch. He was afraid the infection would come back. Hurley knew where the frog was. Sawyer promised not to tell, if Hurley would just show him where to find it.

Sawyer could certainly ask nicely when he wanted, but that wasn't what changed Hugo's mind. Once, at a party, Hugo had stepped out onto a rickety, swaying deck loaded with people jumping up and down as they danced. After the wood gave way, multiple ambulances from all over Los Angeles County had carried away the injured.

That wasn't the worst part, though. Finally, two sheeted forms were loaded into the rigs which drove in silence, with no cherries flashing, until they arrived at the obscure back door which led to the hospital morgue. That night, and for many nights afterward, Hugo had lain awake. Sleep had eluded him, or when it came, its promise of welcome oblivion was punctuated by nightmares.

Hugo knew what it was like to not sleep. It could drive you mad, and in his case, it eventually did. So grudgingly, reluctantly he said, "All right," as he led the way with the finality of a prisoner mounting the block to the guillotine.

As Hugo's anger faded and softened into sympathy, the daimon hesitantly crept out from where it had been hiding. Then the three of them went on a merry chase right into what Sawyer in his slurred, angry tones called the "peeper-creeper heart of darkness."

Morning changed to afternoon, and the air shimmered with heat, drenching Hugo with sweat like a bath. This was turning out to be stupid and pointless, wasn't it? Maybe he could ditch Sawyer and get back to his stash. Then, all at once, out of a small low copse of thickly entwined bushes, the little creature practically flew at them.

Sawyer plucked it out of the air with the smooth adroit motion of a major-league baseman catching a tricky flyball. Then he stood there for a few seconds, as if unsure what to do with his squirming, tiny prisoner.

Something clicked in Hugo's mind, maybe from school, maybe from something his Grandma Titi once told him. Frogs peeped like that when they were looking for mates. Hugo had an idea. He could take the little thing away where it wouldn't bother anyone, where it could find a froggy friend of its own.

Then Hugo wished he hadn't said anything at all. Sawyer's cold grey eyes sliced up and down his body like surgical instruments, slicing first through his damp, stained clothes to carve through the soft flesh beneath, dissecting and laying bare his massive shameful display for all to see.

"I have a better idea," Sawyer said. He crushed the little emerald thing in his angry grip, then dumped the still-twitching remains into Hugo's hand. High noon sunlight soaked the forest, so hot that mist rose up from the jungle floor to blur Hugo's eyes, or perhaps it was just the tears.

After Sawyer stomped off, leaving Hugo standing alone in the jungle, Hugo held the frog until its body was entirely still. Soon the galvanic twitching stopped, but now the tiny open cuts from his covert carpentry started to sting. Slowly he opened his hand, afraid at first to look, but there wasn't much mess. Just a little blood seeped out of the poor smashed body onto his palm. The frog's black-bead eyes no longer shone with excited life, but instead had a blank and dull cast.

Then, since Sawyer was gone, Hugo did cry outright. He set the poor sad thing down to wipe his tears, but that was a big mistake, because when frog-slime got all over his face, it sure burned. This only made him cry harder for the dead thing which a moment ago had been so full of life and anticipation.

Hugo had sometimes come upon frogs coupling in the green jungle shade, clutching each other as if they would never let go. That's all the frog had wanted in its small life. No television, no videos or late-night pizza delivery. No worries about keeping a job, no rock concerts at the Troubadour. Just a lot of flies, a few matings, then spawning and death, but it didn't deserve one like this.

The daimon recovered itself and took up its incessant Dave-chatter once more. "Hey, man, better go check your stash. What if Sawyer took it? Run back and see, chop, chop." But Hugo screamed out freely now, like the guys used to do in the mental hospital, "Just. Shut. Up!" Then he said to himself in a soft half-sob, "Shut up, shut up, omigod, I'm crazy, crazy, crazy, going crazy."

But crazy or not, Hugo wasn't going to let the frog just dry up in the hot afternoon sun, where its little body was already starting to shrivel.

Down the path a-ways he found a spot where the earth was particularly soft. Setting the corpse down, he started to dig a hole with his big hands, but a wave of sickness almost knocked him over. Oh, man, that was his punishment for eating ranch dressing which probably pre-dated _That Seventies Show_. Food poisoning could kill you dead as a plane crash, too.

Then Hugo stared, fascinated, at how the frog's body had a light purple glow to it. As he covered the frog with earth, rainbow-colored lights followed his hands wherever they moved, like the tails of colorful comets.

"Happy trails to yooouuu," Hugo half-sang, half-laughed. "Until we meet again-" All at once his heart pounded in his chest, but slowly, way more slowly than a heart should beat. Panic seized him. Maybe this was the heart attack his mother had always dreaded. As she never stopped reminding him, that's how your grandfathers both went, and you know it runs in families. Hugo's heart echoed like some huge, slow drum, and the thick green leaves pulsed brightly in perfect time with the beats.

Maybe he was wrong, though. Maybe it wasn't his heart which had slowed, but time itself. A few flies ambled along through the misty air, drawn by the smell of frog blood. Other bugs floated like tiny balloons caught in a light breeze, and pretty little rainbow streaks trailed behind them.

"Dude," Hugo whispered. Then he remembered to say the proper words. Touching the mound of earth with one dirt-smeared hand, he spoke in a slow, slurred voice, "Sorry, little buddy. Sorry that jackass killed you, and I couldn't stop him. I hope you find lots of bugs and a hot Mrs. Tree Frog."

Hugo thought about getting up, but didn't bother. A fascinating kaleidoscopic movie spread out before him, one where every leaf, every creeper, every blade of grass glowed with life. He stared at one thick jade leaf and watched the cells suck in sunlight, grow, divide, all weaving together the green jungle tapestry.

He sat there for a long time, just chilling, while the thick warm air caressed him like a soft blanket, while the beauty of the jungle spread out before him like a living, singing tapestry.

Then Hugo in fear stopped breathing for a few seconds, because something moved behind those glowing leaves. In the deep shadows underneath the bushes, dimly-lit things lurked wherever the sun didn't go. Their breath cycled in and out with the rhythm of the forest, merging into one thrumming beat which rode up and down his arms, making the hairs stand on end. Through their shuttered lids the grey creatures peered out at him as they had always done, from their hiding places where the light faded into shadow.

As they had always done, for never on the Island had the castaways been alone, not even from the first seconds when they had all awakened together. And now Hugo saw these silent watchers.

Then, all at once, great harsh shrieks rang out from the upper canopy, "Hurley, Hurley, Hurley." At the sound, the grey shadowy things retreated into the deeper jungle, out of sight. The bird circled, calling his name again, brighter and closer each time. Then down swooped the great bird itself, and with a flurry of wings it landed right on the clearing where Hugo sat.

He'd never seen it up close before. Large as an eagle, its feathers shone deep emerald green, their edges daubed in gold. Its bright scarlet feet ended in long, deadly claws, made to pierce the small, scuttling things which ran about the forest floor. Then the creature stretched up on its scaly feet, spread its wings into full span, and raised itself up into a stance almost human.

Then Hugo knew he'd sprung a main gasket and gone completely out of his senses. The green bird gave a few firm wing-shakes so that all its feathers fell off at once, the way a woman drops a dress to the floor. Its eagle-beak softened and melted into a face, pert and young. Where there had been wings now rested round arms, and long black hair blew about her naked curves. Her dark olive-green skin shone in the sunlight.

Hugo stared, not being able to help himself, drinking in with his gaze the slim waist and swelling hips, the plump round breasts with nipples a shade darker than her face.

The bird-girl came up close to him and with a smile Hugo murmured, "Hey there, green chick," but she didn't smile back. In fact, she looked positively stressed, not chill at all. He could have sat and looked at her all day long and into the next, but she wasn't having any of that. With wide gestures, she chattered in a language he couldn't understand, long cascades of squawks and trills mixed with rapid-fire syllables, fast and urgent.

It was worse than when Sun and Jin fought in Korean, and just as incomprehensible. But worrisome, too, because the bird-girl kept pointing at Hugo's head, making flying motions with her hands, jumping around with agitation when he didn't get it.

Whatever sand had gotten into her gears, it must have been busting them up pretty good, but he wasn't complaining, given the view. Then, when her breasts almost bounced across his nose, he started to laugh. Annoyed, she shook him by the shoulders, which only drew her breasts even more into the center of his attention.

"OK, OK, relax," Hugo said, and she stopped shaking him. Entranced, he said, "Man, are you ever gorgeous," which didn't have the desired effect at all. She just threw up her hands in a universal gesture of frustration and despair. Then the trees began to rustle, and though a little fear prickled at him again, it came from a long way away, entranced as he was by the green girl.

Suddenly a thick, dark mist filled the nearby tree-tops, then blew back and forth like a storm-cloud, as if impatiently waiting for something. At the sight of that hovering shadow, the bird-girl grabbed her dress of feathers and bolted off into the jungle.

Then the whispering began, starting out as a low hum which grew louder, until it formed into a kind of song, like a chant in church.

Hugo hadn't been sick to his stomach at all, not since that first bout of nausea from a few hours before. Now, though, something rose from his very core, fighting to get out as it forced itself upward with increasing pressure. It was as if your mind wanted to vomit, rather than your stomach.

Back at the psych ward, some of the guys used to creep endlessly around the walls of the room, patting the plaster, convinced they could find some secret way out. Inside Hugo, that chiding, wheedling voice had been doing the same thing for almost two weeks now, and it had finally found its opening, a doorway made wide by the frog toxin coursing through Hugo's nervous system, and aided by the ominous smoke-shadow hovering in the trees.

Hugo struggled to his feet, pulled up by the force inside him which pointed up, up towards the sky. Inside, the daimon gabbled, _U__p and out, there__'__s the __path __up ahead,__ clear as day, __if only I can make it, I have__ to get out, please, let __me__ out_, as it clawed and gibbered its way towards the sunlight.

The chaotic rainbow of the jungle burned Hugo's eyes now. Every leaf was ringed with a pulsating halo of blinding orange or yellow light almost too bright to look at. Whatever was inside of him struggling to be born, he didn't want to stick around to see it. His body shook with one final spasm, and the daimon left him, sliding out of his mouth like a long sluice of invisible, imperceptible vomit.

Hugo backed up as if smacked in the face. He stumbled out of the clearing, dodging the thick trees which cast their mid-day shadows all through the Dark Territory. At least that thing which he had carried around was no longer inside, and if it was somewhere out there and free, he didn't care where. It had detached itself as cleanly as a starfish loses an arm. The grotesque silhouette of where it had been left a sick emptiness inside of him.

Now the colors called to him in choleric yellows and urgent reds, acidic blues and rotting purples, and each said the same thing in its own spectral language.

_Run. Just run._

So run Hugo did, tripping several times along the way, pulling himself up only to trip again, at times leaving his body as he had done more than once back in his hospital days. Down he gazed upon his wobbling, running form with pity and contempt. He found his way to his backpack and the spread-out food, where the jar of ranch dressing now played host to a party of ants. Hugo rarely saw ants at the beach, or few bugs of any kind, but they all must have got the invitation, for they covered the white glop with a black, wriggling mass.

The food looked alien and repulsive, and Hugo couldn't believe he had ever put it in his mouth. He stared at the sticky white mess, and it was like looking at one of those old cartoons, as unbelievably tiny globs of fat arranged themselves in long orderly rows like soldiers on parade, then marched back and forth, merging their rows together, exchanging their stick-like weapons as they shifted position. The whole mass throbbed, then oozed its way out of the jar and across the jungle floor towards his athletic shoes, where it stopped just short of the toes and sat there, quivering.

Hugo backed up, terrified that the slime-like mass would form tentacles and leap up to grab his legs. Then when he looked again, he saw nothing on the ground but a tub of spoiled salad dressing and a few jars and cans. He swept the whole mess in his back-pack, not caring that the jar lid wasn't on very tightly, and got the hell out of there.

Maybe he should have turned left when he should have veered right, or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, the path kept twisting away from Hugo every time thought he'd gotten a foothold on it, and none of it looked familiar. Wide white flowers hung down from the low-hanging creepers, and at the center of every flower there winked out at him a small human face. When he pushed them aside to keep to the narrow, elusive path, they laughed at him with voices like small, tinkling bells.

All at once the creepers thinned out to almost nothing. Trees wove together into a lacy screen, and from behind it, the sounds of moving water echoed through the jungle. Hugo snaked his way through the shield of trees, then stopped short, amazed. There, protected within a shady grove, bubbled a spring of pure, fresh water, frothing over the edges of large, mossy stones.

If anyone from the beach camp had found this place, Hugo had never heard of it. The water murmured a quiet, soothing song as it tumbled out of the rock face. Soft garlands of ferns hung over the water's edge, while small breezes picked up moisture from the spring's surface and carried them over to Hugo, casting a refreshing mist over his red, sweating face.

It was like an open invitation, and he took it. He'd managed to squeeze in a shower or two in the Swan Hatch, but that was awkward, because Locke was always there, and there were far more contenders than towels. And he would have cut off his own head before stripping down and bathing in the ocean, as so many of the beach castaways did. Here, though, it was private as a bath, and so Hugo undressed and stepped into the warm roiling water. High above, the trees rustled with bird wings, but when Hugo looked up, he saw nothing there.

The pool itself was long and wide enough for him to stretch out in, and plunge his head underwater besides. He lay back, immersed, with only his face and a round belly-curve breaking through the surface. All the sweat, the anxiety, the sorrow over the little frog, and the weird colors in the forest leached away into that soothing water. When he finally pulled himself out, the bees flew at their normal busy pace, and they landed on flowers which no longer had faces. Leaves glimmered golden with sunlight around the edges, not purple. A soft peaceful hush hung over everything.

The whole weird experience faded like a half-forgotten dream. Hugo dried himself with his stained yellow shirt, unaware that this peace represented the calm before the storm.

He rooted inside his back-pack for the clean extra t-shirt he stowed there, but he must not have screwed the ranch dressing lid on tightly enough, because his shirt was wet with it. "Crap," he muttered, but he'd have to haul it all back, because he couldn't imagine soiling the pristine clarity of that pool with something so foul. He hated putting on soiled, wet clothes when he felt so clean and scrubbed, almost like a new person entirely, but that couldn't be helped either.

So Hugo trudged back to the beach camp, not sure how he'd missed the path in the first place, because now it lay before him as clear as if marked out on a map. As he rounded the curve of the shoreline which led back to their beach, he saw Libby running in his direction like her life depended on it. She slowed down when she saw him and he gave her a shy smile.

"Hey," she said, turning around so that she was now headed towards the beach camp.

"Hey, back at ya," he answered. Then, in an act of rash bravery which he never thought he'd be capable of, he said, "How 'bout if I, um, join you tomorrow? You know, for a run?"

She looked surprised at first, her eyes blank. Then she smiled and said in cool, measured tones, "Sure. I'd like that." Almost at once she took off, jogging back to the beach camp with the rhythmic, disciplined strides of a marathon runner. Soon she was way ahead of him as he trudged on through the sand, hoping everyone would be too busy preparing the evening meal and staying out of Sawyer's way to take much notice of him.

High in a tree along the forest's edge the daimon perched, watching the distance between Hugo and Libby widen as Hugo made his way back to the camp. In Dave-voice it said to itself, "He thinks he's gonna keep up with her, he's got a surprise coming. Believe me, I tried, and I never could." The daimon was so preoccupied with its own sense of amusement and freedom that it didn't even feel the thick, inky cloud which crept up on it from behind.

(_continued_)


	4. Screwtape Proposes a Bargain

**Chapter 4: Screwtape Proposes a Bargain**

Samael hovered above the low trees like a thundercloud, watching. After a few moments he lost interest in Hugo and Libby's retreating forms, and instead turned his attention to the daimon.

At first the preoccupied creature didn't see Samael, as it was busy stretching its confined etheric limbs and congratulating itself on its good fortune. Samael let the daimon have its time in the sun, then got down to business.

"You owe me," Samael said to the daimon.

"For what? You said find your own ride out, and I did. Had I waited on your good graces, I'd still be rotting down in that hole."

Samael shot back, "And that's right where you'll go, if you don't shut your trap and listen to me."

The daimon launched itself into the air, thinking to fly away, but an iron grip seized it and smashed it into the very trunk of the tree on which it had perched. It had forgotten how much that could hurt.

"This is the deal," Samael said. "You want to live, you'll take the form of the hungry ghost you swallowed. He already know what makes that fat, stupid fellow tick. Get Hugo to kill himself somehow, any way you like. Then we talk payment. Blow me off and I squish you like that pond peeper back there."

The daimon decided to try flattery. "I've heard of you, or rather, of those like you. Never until this age have I encountered the splendor of your presence face-to-face. But your powers, so magnificent, almost to the level of the gods themselves. Speaking of which, where are the gods now, by the way? Since my liberation, I've seen nary a one. Have you perhaps grown so in power and majesty that you've overthrown them entirely?"

If Samael had a face, the daimon would have fled from it in terror. "Stop spewing your filth. "You don't have to worry about the gods right now, you have to worry about me." Then he changed his tone, and became more cajoling. "All right, I can tell that you want me to sweeten the pot. Here's the deal. How would you like a body?"

"Why would I want one of those?" the daimon wanted to know, truly incredulous.

"Oh, there are advantages. You've seen how the fat one relishes food. I remember food myself, and I can't recommend it highly enough. And then there are women, quite a few of them on this Island, as a matter of fact, in every taste, size, and combination you might want." Samael then eyed the daimon closely, as if seeing something for the first time. "You might even get her back. And with a few new tricks, perhaps you'll even hold her attention this time."

The daimon knew that Dave's blocky, gnomic form was the polar opposite of what the Phoenicians, Egyptians and Greeks had thought beautiful in a man. So the daimon didn't disguise its skepticism as it remarked, "I'd be at a bit of a disadvantage, don't you think? After all, she didn't marry me, er, him for looks. As she told me many a time. I mean, him."

"Nonsense," Samael said in an oily voice. "I've been watching these recent humans for decades now. Dave Smith is actually considered quite fetching these days, with his shiny pate and fine strong nose. Don't judge him by the limitations of a disgruntled woman. Of course, you can just sit there as a spirit and rot, too."

It was an intriguing offer, and the daimon pondered it. "A body might tempt me. Would I keep my powers? Rush through the air, go through walls, appear, disappear, stuff like that?"

"Of course," Samael said, the slick smile in his voice growing even wider. "That goes without saying."

Nothing goes without saying," the daimon retorted. "No tricks, now."

"None. I give you my word."

The daimon pretended to ponder. _ "_Hmm. Bodies are easy to catch, if someone suspects them of mischief. As it is, I can soar away lighter than air. And I'd kind of stand out on this Island, with as few humans as there are. You'll have to do better than that."

The black smoke coalesced into a thick column of menace. "You demon spew. I'll make it hurt."

The daimon drew itself up, trying to hold onto what little dignity remained. "I was resigned to death when I first saw you ride in on that human Locke."

"Where did you learn to bargain, from Phoenician traders?" Samael demanded.

"Actually, yes."

Samael made a disgusted noise, like a freight train blowing a low whistle. "All right, then. When I leave this Island, you can come with me. Would you like that? Rather than one or two sad sacks for you to tempt, or a former wife who never cried out in love for you anyway, you will have a whole world of millions, billions now for all I know, upon which to ply your wares. More cloacas of the heart to crawl through than you could ever imagine."

The daimon still hoped for more concessions. "If you want the fat fool dead, why don't you kill him yourself?" it asked. Soon it wished it hadn't, for Samael dealt the daimon such a mighty blow that it flew apart.

Samael looked down on the daimon's shattered fragments with contempt, watching them squirm as they came together in one ectoplasmic shudder after another. As the daimon struggled to pull itself together, Samael said, "Don't be stupid. You know the rules. Fine, I'll give you a hint. He's already been incarcerated one of their madhouses. Oh, you look so surprised. You didn't know that? Maybe instead of stuffing your face with hungry ghosts, you should actually learn something about them before digging in.

"Or maybe you're losing your touch after all those years underground. It shouldn't be too hard to talk him into killing himself. Trick him into cliff-diving by showing him how it's done. You'll have your powers, remember? He's a complete steer, a big dumb ox who'll follow you right to the slaughter. Or if you're that bereft of ideas as to how to elide the human's will with yours, go to his camp, find the man Sawyer, and learn from him. He's one of the best."

"Maybe I like it here," the daimon sulked. "Maybe I don't want to travel the world."

"Suit yourself. But by the time the moon goes dark, I want him gone."

"I don't suppose you can use your own ride to snuff him out. You know, the bald one," said the daimon.

"All those years have made you argumentative, and it grows tiresome," Samael said. "No, my ride is otherwise occupied. I have plans for him, big plans. So what'll it be, help me out and have the run of the Island, then leave with me as my factotum? Of course, there's always back into the hole with you, and from the looks of you, you don't have much time left anyway. Just don't whine that I didn't give you a choice."

"Fine," the daimon grumbled, secretly capering at a far better bargain than it had ever expected to get. "I'll do it. I've seen the insides of him. There are more strings to pull than in a puppet show, and he'll be diving off that cliff edge before you know it. But I'm just doing this to be shut of you, you understand."

Samael laughed as he dispersed, fading into invisibility along with the fast-setting evening sun.

The daimon soared over to the beach camp where the hapless humans stirred their little fires and roasted foul bits of seaweed and shellfish. Soon enough the daimon would show itself to Hugo as the late, great Dave Smith, in the flesh, but for now it had to find this Sawyer fellow as Samael had suggested, and learn from him.

As the daimon perched atop Sawyer's tent, it muttered, "Damnable how these humans change so much over the centuries. Every time you think you have them figured out, there they go re-inventing everything, so you can't even make a good pitch to them without having to learn the whole language over again, as well as what makes them tick. The old tricks don't work, and you have to find variants or even new ones. At least Hugo the Fat's motivations will be simple."

Sawyer crawled into his tent carrying a pornographic magazine, but the lean, rangy man only glanced at it with partial attention. "Ho, ho_,"_ the daimon chortled. "You've had a hard day in the woods, too, haven't you? Wonder what you saw out there. Too bad no one told you to leave those frogs alone."

If Sawyer heard the daimon's buzz, he didn't show it. He rubbed his temples, the headache shifting up into full gear, nausea from the frog-slime still sloshing in his churning guts. Sawyer stretched out in his sand-crusted airplane seat and closed his eyes as the daimon nestled securely on his shoulder. It listened intently as Sawyer turned over in his mind some new, elaborate plan of retribution and revenge.

OoOoOoOoO

Back in the Dark Territory, the dusky green bird-girl Rima crouched beneath the jungle understory until the smoke creature and its daimon companion had gone. Soon it would be dark, and she should be roosting, but she wasn't sure she could outrun either one of the fell beings who had frightened her into hiding. She clutched her feather mantle close to her breast, wondering where Hugo had gone, and if he had recovered from the frog's effects.

From behind a thicket of coffee cherry trees a voice was singing, harsh and a bit rusty. Rima pushed through hanging creepers to see better, then gave a great sigh of relief. There at the clearing's corner, a little old woman squatted by a small eucalyptus grove. A loud sprinkle came from beneath her ti-leaf skirt as she piddled onto the bare earth. Grey-haired but straight-backed, the old woman waved her hands over the ground, which seemed to move of its own accord at her touch. Before long there was a wide trench five or six feet deep.

Then the old woman leaned back as if pulling with all her might, so hard that she almost fell over onto her scrawny buttocks. Just as she was about to topple, a great gush of living water sprung up from the pissed-upon earth. She laughed, a crowing, raucous sound, and sat back on her haunches as the bubbling geyser rapidly spread into a pool, filling the pit.

Now that the old woman's work was done, Rima felt brave enough to venture forth, saying, "Hail, Haumea."

The old woman nodded in greeting.

Rima asked, curious, "So, you're making another spring. What's this one for?"

"We're going to have company, come the next dark moon. Ten of them, twelve at the most, so they'll need water. Kamapua'a will send them boar, and the trees will swell with fruit here. The birds' nests are full, and all these fallen trees have made the grubs fat and juicy."

"Enough to feed them all?" Rima said.

"They'll be safe here from the coming storm. I take care of my own, unlike some I know."

"You mean Jacob."

"Every year he grows more weary, longing for death. But what of your task, child?"

"I tried to tell him, to warn him just like you asked me to. But he couldn't understand me. And with the tree frog poison in his body, the daimon got out, just as you thought it might. It's on the loose now."

Haumea shrugged, as if it didn't matter.

"And Samael," Rima spit on the grass as she uttered his name, "Samael's going to use the daimon to kill him. He talked the daimon into taking the form of that hungry ghost, the one Hugo was carrying around inside, but didn't know was there. Hugo thought he had gotten rid of him. I wish someone could have told him it's not that simple. Oh, I've muddled this hopelessly. They're going to try to trick Hugo into jumping off a cliff, or hurt himself some other way. The daimon's going to lure him over by jumping first, to show him how it's done. And I don't know what to do."

This last part Rima wailed out in a long bird call of distress which was picked up by other night-birds, who were saying their evening farewells in the jungle canopy.

The old woman rocked back and forth on her scrawny haunches and laughed, deep from the belly. In a scratchy voice she said, "Stupid daimon. We should have swept those mouse turds out of the hut and into the shit-pit long ago. That last one's tough, I'll admit, but not tough enough. Let it jump. In the last instant before it crashes into the hard breast of the surf, it will understand how it was lied to, and its screams will ring in my ears. Its pathetic remains will get crushed to dust and mixed into the coral. Kill it before it breeds, I say."

"Speaking of which," Rima put in. "The people who are coming to this new-made spring, the night of the next dark moon. What's going to happen if one of them gets with child?"

"Two in their camp already are, but only one of them will come to shelter here."

"What about the other one?"

Haumea just shook her head sadly.

"So, your curse?"

"What of it?"

"These human women on the beach, they're not like Jacob's people. They don't deserve this."

Haumea gave Rima a stern look. "Jacob's people shed the Island's blood, and from them blood was taken. But it's a new day now. I lifted the curse on the day that plane crashed onto our sands."

Rima stopped to consider this for a moment. Then she said, "What about Hugo, and that thing out there?"

"There's always risk in these matters. But the Island knows its own. Don't fear for Hugo, Rima. Just watch over him. Love him."

"I do," she whispered. "Too much."

Haumea raised her wrinkled face, her brow furrowed in warning. "He's not for you, child. You knew this from the start, when I picked you out of your flock and gave you the gift of a girl's form."

"Sometimes it feels more like a curse."

"With a woman's body comes a woman's heart," Haumea said. "It can't be helped. But seven years' service you promised me. Afterwards, you may take all the lovers you like, from Tahiti to Hawai'i, and on this Island, too, if you find any that please you. Just not this one, darling. He's for someone else, if she'll have him."

"Seven years? Will it really take that long?"

Haumea picked up the green-gold feather-skin and reached up high, sweeping it across the girl's smooth olive-green shoulders as she spoke. "I hope not." Haumea straightened Rima's feather robe the way a mother buttons her child's coat, before sending her out to play. She fixed Rima with a stern glance and said, "Also, don't spy on him when he bathes. You're just making it worse for yourself."

Rima's cheeks changed from dark olive to the deep forest-green of fern fronds in the shade, but soon her blushes faded as her bird form overcame her. Then Rima the bird-girl of the Island spread her great aeneous wings and flew northwards, towards her eyrie.

There above the steaming volcano the bird-girl perched with her flock, all awaiting the day when Jacob would be deposed. Then the Lady of Volcanoes would return to bathe her feet in the volcano's liquid orange flames, and shake the mountainside with her lord Kamapua'a, the wild Boar King. Then the Lord and Lady would dance on the greensward at a great feast under the stars, where the Lady would anoint a new Protector for the world's Heart. And on that night the mountains and the seas would rise up and be glad, for long had the good creatures of the greenwood waited.

It was about time.

(_The End_)

**(A/N:** _The chapter title is a play on C.S. Lewis's "Screwtape Proposes a Toast," from __The Screwtape Letters_**. **_Also, if you enjoyed __Legion of One__, you might also enjoy its companion one-shot, "You Can't Spell Island without LSD," where Sawyer has his own psychedelic experience with that trippy little tree frog_.**)**


End file.
